Story line: An ancient mariner stoppes a wedding-guest and begins to tell him his story.
He was on a ship and the weather was good until he passed the Line. A storm took the
ship in a land with great mountains of ice, and there was always a fog. An albatross meet
the ship and followed it for a few days. The mariner killed the albatross thinking it brought
fog and mist. The sun rose in the sky and the crew was happy, but it was so hot that the
water finished and all the crew died. Only the Mariner survived and he must drive the ship
alone, but it was too difficult. After a long period he came back home but his pain is not
finished, because he is damned to tell his story ‘till the end of his life.
Analysis of the first part
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a long ballad which is divided into seven parts
introduced by a short summary of the story. The ballad is very similar to the medioeval
ballads: the rhyme and the stress pattern are the same, the story line is short and simple.
The author uses both narration and direct speech, and even the topics are similar (death,
sin, punishment and supernatural). There is a large use of repetitions (refrains), of
metaphors (symbolism) and arcaisms.
Reading the title there are three words that strike my attenction: “rime”, “ancient” and
“mariner”. These words are not commonly used in modern English. The author adopted
three arcaisms to remind something distant in time.
IThe first part starts with the words of the narrator who introduces the two characters: The
ancient mariner who stops a wedding guest to tell him his dreadful tale.In the first quatrain
the narrator explain what the anciet mariner does and gives some information about him
through a direct speech of the weeding guest “By thy long grey beard and glittering
eye..”the quatrain ends with a question of the weeding guest adress to the ancient mariner
“Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?”.
In the second quatrain the reader comes to know that the weeding guest must go to the
marrige and invites the Mariner to listen the “meery din”. In the first quatrain the attention
of the narrator is focuses on the impression of the images instead in the second quatrain
he puts the attention of the reader on the music of marrige.
In the third quatrain the narrator gives other information about the Mariner :” his skinny
hand” , he seems to be a dead or a gost. In the second line of the third quatrain the
Mariner begins to tell his story but the weeding Guest seem not appreciate Mariner’s
intention and he calls him:” grey-beard loon “. In the 4th and 5th quatrains the Wedding
Guest is paralysed and listen the Mariner, which has hypnotic power, making people listen
to him; he is compelled by a mysterious power to tell the story again and again; The
narrator uses a simile “like a three years’ child” to emphasize the attention of the Wedding
Guest.
The narrator gives an information about the setting “The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone”
and the reader is free to imaginate.The wedding Guest seems to be abducted by the
Mariner “He cannot choose but hear”. In this quatrain the reader can understand that the
language is simple and the purpose of the narrator is To drive the reader’s mind out of
common life made him experience the power of immagination by the supernatural.
From the 6th quatrain to the 8th quatrain the Mariner continues to tell his story. He begins to
tell about the ship and his story is so quick that gives the impression of the waves that rock
the ship.
The speed of the 6th quatrain is given by the anaphoric structure of the word “ below”.
In the 7th quatrain the reader undertand that the weather is favourable for travelling and
the sun
is personified, and the narrator refers to it using the pronoun "he", which is usually refered
only to men. But after it had shone, the sun “went down into the sea”.
In the 8th quatrain is an anaphora in the same line and the narrator gives an information
about time: is noon. The tale of the mariner is disturbed by the lound bassoon and the
Wedding Guest is restless to listen the bridal music but the Mariner continues his tale.
One of the most important features of the ballad is the setting, which coincides with nature.
Nature is very important in all romantic poetry, expecially because of the relationship
between man and nature. In the ballad there is a detailed descriprion of nature, mainly
weather conditions. Man is dominated by nature, he can’t do nothing against it. Nature
moves the ship, kills the crew, and doesn’t allow the mariner to came back home.
While the Mariner is telling the story the bride is walking in the church but the Weeding
Guest is abducted by the Mariner. In the 10th quatrain there is a refrain that recalls the 5th
quatrain but the first line of the 10th is changed .
In the 11th quatrain the weather is changed and the ship drawn by a storm toward the
South Pole.
The Storm has a strong power and it is compared with a bird that flap the wings.
In the 12th quatrain the Mariner tells the consequences of the storm with a metonymy to
make realism. The story are very quick and the narrator gives to the reader the
impression of the rapidity of the storm, he focuses the attention on the sense impression
especially on hearing.
From the 13th to the 15th quatrain the attention of the reader is focuses on the wheater
when the mariner's ship is surrounded by dangerous ice. In the 13th quatrain there is an
anaphora of the
conjunction “and” to emphasize the difficulty that the Mariner meets.
In the 16th quatrain the albatross, a sacred bird in many religion and mythical traditions,
comes throuth the fog and it represents a symbol of salvation from the storm.The albatross
brings a good weather and the ice that in the 15th quatrain seems to be permanent ,now it
starts to melt.
The albatross stays a while and seems to be leading the ship out of trouble, when for no
good reason, the mariner kills it with a bolt from his trusty crossbow.
The text can be read on the religious level : The story of the mariner can be interpretated
as an experience of a man who committed a sin. He did it killing the albatross, and he
pays for his sin travelling alone after the crew died, and going around the world telling his
story for all his life. For what concernes this level of reading it can be said that the ballad
has got a moral intent, it wants to give a moral teaching.
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